The Washington Commanders traded defensive end Chase Young this week to the San Francisco 49ers for a 2024 third-round compensatory selection. While many have complained that compensation for Young was low, that was his market, and the Commanders were lucky to receive a second-day pick.
It’s a sad ending to Young’s tenure in Washington. The No. 2 overall pick in the 2020 NFL draft — and head coach Ron Rivera’s first draft pick — was supposed to be a franchise cornerstone for a decade.
A DMV native, Young was popular amongst fans before he ever donned the burgundy and gold. Then, as a rookie in 2020, Young had 7.5 sacks and won the NFL defensive rookie of the year award.
That was, unfortunately, the high point of Young’s time with the Commanders. Young skipped the voluntary OTAs in 2021, the only player of 90 to do so, angering Rivera and Washington’s coaching staff. What made matters worse was his performance in 2021 before a November knee injury ended his season after nine games.
Young missed all but three games in 2022, leading Washington to decline his fifth-year option for 2024.
It’s been clear for a while that Young wasn’t in the franchise’s plans, making this week’s trade a non-shocker.
On Friday, Rivera spoke about Young and the “unfortunate” circumstances from his time in Washington.
“Nobody thought that those things would come up,” Rivera said about Young’s injuries, primarily the knee injury. “So, that’s the unfortunate part.”
In four years as Washington’s head coach, Rivera has struggled with a 25-32-1 record. Part of the lack of success is due to his failures with first-round selections. Young, Jamin Davis, Jahan Dotson and Emmanuel Forbes have been Rivera’s first-round picks. Dotson is the best of the bunch thus far in a limited sample size.
Things would look a lot different, though, if Young had been the player everyone envisioned.
Rivera was asked why it didn’t work out with Young and didn’t really answer.
“Well, I think that more so than anything else, as we put this plan together, I think it’s really what we felt was in the best interest of our football team going forward,” Rivera said. “We had a plan going into this; the front office put together what those offers were, and we sat down and talked about the best way to go with it, the best direction, and then sat down with ownership, and everybody was aligned when we were done talking about it.”
Was Rivera disappointed in the value Washington received in return for Young?
“Well, it’s never what you hope,” he answered. “When we go through the injuries that we talked about, nobody foresaw that. So, that’s why we’re just moving on for the opportunity we have and that they have as well.”
In case you couldn’t tell, Rivera was tired of answering what was essentially the same question.
So, after answering five questions about Young, by the time he received the sixth question, Rivera was ready to move on.
Here is the video version from the above quote pic.twitter.com/rl8FoUKR9U
— Scott Abraham (@Scott7news) November 3, 2023
I mean, you can’t blame him, right? How many times can you answer the same question?
